Growing Pains
by Forever Champion
Summary: Eventually, all of the Pevensies grew too old for Narnia. For though their years were tender, their spirits fled beyond its simple truth.


**As always, I do not own Narnia or any of C.S. Lewis's works. My theories are simple musings, and are not to be befuddled with canon. (Also, this was typed on my glitchy phone, so all mistakes are my own.)**

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They all grew up eventually. In years, certainly - they were old enough to be courted in Narnia and to consider marriage. Yet they were not cast out when Susan's hair reached her feet, and Edmund had to lengthen the stirrups of his riding saddle. It was not Peter's beard, nor Lucy's deepening soprano that released them from Narnia's sweet innocence.

Eventually, they all grew too old for childish whims.

Susan was the first. Always a step ahead of her siblings, she had challenged the intellectual against the assumed in her most tender years. Her theories of the known were shattered in Narnia, when One who was impossible and perfect refuted all assumptions and concepts of logic. Upon leaving the golden land, she tried to apply Aslan in London, nagging her tutors and Peter's theological professors with questions, and searching for Narnia in stories written to another world, until eventually she felt reassured that she understood everything there was to know about the King. And so Susan grew up, far away from the Queen who had once accepted Aslan because he Was, and not for whom she expected him to be.

Peter was the second of the Pevensies to leave Narnia behind. Though he believed ardently in the Lion and the door to another realm, he perceived that duty compelled him to act on Aslan's behalf. For was he not a king, and did not all of Aslan's subjects rely on his knowledge and graciousness, whether in Narnia or beyond its borders? For the sake of the poor and the neglected he sought wisdom and judgment, rallying for their causes so that he might release them from their misfortunes. And so it was that Peter grew up, forgetting that it was Aslan who freed the prisoner and gave them hope everlasting.

Edmund was the third to pass the threshold of Narnia's goodness. Though he defended his Lord in valiant debates and forgot not the sacrifice of the Lion, he chaffed at the burden of youth as men beyond his years were pressed into honorable service for their country. Forgetting that Aslan uses the simple to confound the wise, and the weak to shame the strong, he sought the honor of his elders, fighting to take his place among the soldiers of men. And thus Edmund fell astray, weathered in spirit and disillusioned with the world around him.

Lucy followed closely behind her brother, charmed by the dreams of courtships and convoys from another world. Though her spirit remained true to Aslan, her heart was soon distracted by the young men who praised youth and beauty. In Narnia she was a noble queen, who laughed merrily at those who attempted to sway her from Aslan's side. Now she fancied the tender embrace and sweet words of a man, who might love her until death parted them both. And thus Lucy grew into her womanhood, leaving her child's spirit to linger in the wardrobe until the final Call.

Sweet Jill Poe never grew out of her first wonder for Narnia, for she had seen both Aslan's kindness and his terrible wonder, and she kept these memories before her as she returned through the gate, a warrior before the schoolmates who had bullied her, and a sister to those who were rejected by their peers. For was not Aslan here and now, always and forever, both in London and in Narnia alike? She held onto his promise of return like a daughter waiting for her Daddy to come home from war, for she belonged wholly to him; whether in the drudgery of a boarding school or the beautiful fields of a distant country. She was his ambassador, and he was her King, and such she would not change, not matter how her peers sneered at her when she spent her free afternoons reading an old book, or how odd her teachers pronounced her when she spurred into a dance for glee when she felt her Father's joy. Surely the hymns from the school chapel traveled to the throne of the Ancient of Days, and such worship carried Jill to the place where only the spirit may bow at the feet of the Maker of All. And so it was that even while her cousins gathered at the train station, Jill Poe was running back her heartland, and the One who eagerly awaited her return.

Eustace also carried such hope within him, for he had been newly conquered by the Utmost and Highest, and he could not forget the mingled joy and sorrow of repentance as selfishness and cowardice was stripped from his spirit. There never was any but Aslan, who had called him from another world, giving him a new name and a place in eternity. Aslan Was and Is, and he had never been left behind when Narnia was cut off, no more than one could lose the Omnipotent by traveling to France or America. And though Eustace searched many a painting for that ancient ship, he knew that it was not brush strokes or ancient wood that determined Aslan's will, and that when the King called for him, nothing in London could bar his way. And so it was that when the land opened before him, Eustace stepped eagerly into Narnia, for he had ever been waiting for the Lion's herald, and London had no place in a heart given freely to the One who created all worlds.

So it was that each of the Narnian children made their choice. For the faith of a child, once lost, is not easy to regain. Yet if the noble and venerated King Frank and Queen Helen had been plucked from their world in the most desperate of times, and elected to rule a distant country, then all was not lost for the Pevinsies. And one day, when distractions faded and the face of Aslan was seen anew, they would return to the love and trust that sprang from a child's heart.


End file.
